How to make this World Cup a win for soccer diplomacy

The promise and peril of football diplomacy during the soccer World Cup that starts on June 11 were already on display in December, during the draw that took place in Washington’s Trump (sic) Kennedy Center.

Three world leaders shared the stage, representing the tournament’s co-hosts in this first-ever trinational cup: America’s Donald Trump, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada’s Mark Carney. There was no love lost between Trump and the other two, after he had hinted at military intervention in Mexico and the annexation of Canada, in keeping with his claim to dominate the whole Western Hemisphere, from Venezuela and Cuba to Greenland.

When FIFA, the international federation of soccer associations, awarded the 2026 cup to the three co-bidders during Trump’s first term, their cooperation was supposed to highlight the integration of the North American continent. An early and optimistic slogan was "United As One."

That doesn’t sound right anymore in Trump’s neo-imperialist second term, when intermittent trade wars have replaced the old dreams of a free-trade area. (The official FIFA slogan is now "WE ARE 26.”) Continental politics have entered an ice age, and Carney has become something of a leader in the global resistance against Trumpism.

And yet soccer presents diplomatic opportunities that no other forum — neither the United Nations nor NATO, the World Bank, the Group of 20 or anything of that ilk — can provide. So it did during that draw. Sheinbaum and Carney performed gamely next to Trump, pulling country names for the group assignments as if they were on a game show. The trio then retreated to a private room for a trilateral chat.

In that way, soccer is ideal for providing what diplomats call "structured informality." Ping-Pong, cricket and other sports have also bridged gaps of animosity, but soccer is unique because so much of humanity loves it. In the stands and on the pitch, fans and players are "divided by jerseys, united by their passion through sports," says Travis Murphy, a veteran of the U.S. State Department who now runs a company that promotes sports diplomacy. And up in the VIP suites, he adds, soccer is "the most reliable convening instrument that we have on the international stage."

But leaders still have to recognize the instrument as such, and even then they need a flair for wielding it. The worry with Trump is that he misinterprets the World Cup — like the celebrations for America’s 250th birthday and practically everything else — as being all about him. The same ceremony in December already provided a bad omen, as FIFA’s fawning president awarded Trump a newly invented (and gaudily gilded) "peace prize."

The point of that gesture was to flatter Trump, of course, especially after he had just lost his bid for the real peace prize awarded in Oslo. But the global soccer community was embarrassed by the hammy kowtow. It has aged especially badly since Trump has dropped his irenic guise and started waging war from the Caribbean to the Middle East.

Futbol diplomacy can also "backfire," Heather Dichter told me. She’s a professor at Britain’s De Montfort University and literally edited the book on soccer diplomacy. Just as the sport can humanize adversaries and thaw cold wars, it can also inflame narcissistic and nationalist passions. When Trump hosts other world leaders in the stadiums, he could be greeted with boos, she thinks.

History has plenty of examples for good and bad outcomes, but more for the good. Soccer first proved its power to sublimate national conflicts during the famous "Christmas truce" of 1914, when German and British soldiers in World War I temporarily stopped shooting and played an amicable game between the trenches. Since then, many nations have used soccer to overcome old hatreds.

In 2008, Turkey and Armenia had no diplomatic relations and were bitterly divided over the genocide committed in the Ottoman Empire. But then the Armenian president invited his Turkish counterpart to watch the qualifier between their countries for the upcoming World Cup. That led to the first exchange of official visits and the so-called Zurich Protocols that began the normalization of bilateral relations.

Similar thaws followed matches between the two Koreas and the two Germanys during and after the Cold War. The symbolism of co-hosting packs particular punch: It’s only happened once before, when Japan and South Korea teamed up for the 2002 cup, overcoming a painful history of strife and setting the stage for their evolving partnership.

Perhaps the most heartwarming example in the context of the ongoing war in the Middle East is a match during the 1998 cup in France between the U.S. and Iran, which were formal enemies then as now. Players entered the stadium amid huge public anxiety. Instead the two teams mingled for a joint photo and the Iranians gave the Americans white roses. Everyone inside and outside the stadium, except perhaps the ayatollahs, felt a humanizing glow. The score was 2-1 for Iran, but the victor was soccer.

When things go wrong, though, they go very wrong. In 1969, the teams of Honduras and El Salvador met in Mexico City’s famed Azteca Stadium, the same one that hosts this year’s opening match between Mexico and South Africa. Relations were already tense between the neighbors, as dispossessed farmers in El Salvador migrated to Honduras in search for scarce land. After El Salvador eked out a 3-2 win in overtime, the passions flared so much that the countries went to war for four days.

For the 2026 cup, Trump has certainly shortened the odds of diplomatic disappointment. He continues to wage his phony war against Iran, which has led to an unusual arrangement in which the Iranian players will overnight in Mexico during the tournament and commute to their three matches in the US. He has also tightened visa and other restrictions on fans from many of the countries that are competing.

And he’s created a climate of fear — with ICE raids, arbitrary arrests and mass detentions — that has prompted Amnesty International to issue the kind of human-rights warning it usually addresses to tin-pot dictatorships. All this, plus high ticket prices, might explain why most of the 11 American host cities are reporting far fewer bookings than expected for a World Cup.

The United States has already been losing its soft power under Trump. Dichter, the expert on soccer diplomacy, told me she wouldn’t be surprised if Canada and Mexico now gain in global rizz while the U.S. ends up looking ugly. (America hosts 78 of the matches, Canada and Mexico 13 each.)

And yet, soccer has achieved far unlikelier feats of harmonization. Trump, Carney, Sheinbaum and many of the other leaders who’ll come to cheer on their teams can still use this World Cup to start conversations that could make the world more peaceful. The condition is that they all recognize that sport is about fellowship rather than dominance, and about celebrating humanity rather than flattering any particular leader’s ego.

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for The Economist.